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Monday, 21 July 2014

The Falange take on a new enemy

For the past few outings the Falange have been pitted against James and his unstoppable T-26 (the bloke is practically Rommel incarnate) however yesterday evening we played at a much more sedate pace. After last weeks game, Greg wanted another try and also bought along his son Ben for a go. Trevs' game had cancelled at the last minute so he also joined in for a Chain of Command taster.

As Greg had only played the once and neither Ben nor Trev at all, I decided we should play the Patrol scenario pitting the Falange against my Milicianos. As there was only a difference in the forces of 5pts the Milicianos added an extra ten men, a LMG and an Army Officer advisor to balance the forces.

Rolling for Force Morale, the Nationalists started on FM9 and the Republicans on FM8.

We set up the table as per the aerial photograph and played out the Patrol Phase, the Nationalist jump-off points shown in blue, those of the Republicans in red.

Rolling for our Force Supports, we would both have 2pts to play with, the Republicans chose El Hombre and an Adjutant and the Falange added a 50mm mortar team.

The Falange were soon deployed, one section behind the houses and another holding the hedges to their right. The light mortar was pushed along the other hedge line. The Republicans started one section on their far right and three more pushed around the buildings, the final section was held in reserve.

The Falange secure the Taberna - always a good move

Soon two Falange teams were ensconced in one of the buildings and were exchanging fire with the Republican team armed with a LMG the other side of the hedge, despite the hard cover, the additional shots from the LMG were soon telling and a few Falangista were down. On the right Trevor took his section and started to skirt around, in an attempt to outflank the Republicans. On their right the team that had deployed there dashed across the open ground under ineffective light mortar fire and was soon in the open woodland.

Ben rolled his Command Dice and another of the many double-sixes he rolled during the course of the game came up so he maintained the initiative and another section of Republicans made a dash across the central road and the Falangista firing from the windows of the buildings tried to capitalise, but were too shook up by the continued LMG fire. The republican Jefe soon joined in that sector coordinating the attacking units and the days were numbered for the Falangistas in the house, we lost two teams and their Jefe causing our Force Morale to drop by four.

Republicans dash to take cover

The Republicans in the wood soon reappeared at the edge and were engaging the Falange team and light mortar although the Falangista were much better shots than their colleagues who had occupied the house and they started to get the advantage.

Things were going better on our right, Trevor had lined the hedge row and was pouring fire into the exposed Republicans massing behind the building, but another set of Republican Command Dice threw a double six to great effect and our Jefe was down and we had to use a Chain of Command dice to avoid taking a Force Morale test. The Republican Jefe was soon redeployed here and sorting out his troops.

Falange secure the hedge line

It was now closing on 10PM and was time to wrap up. Neither side had secured their objectives, but the Republicans were still on their Starting Force Morale of 8 while the Nationalists had been reduced to Force Morale 5 so they were certainly getting the upper hand.